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Friday, October 31, 2014

In the newest issue of Star*Line, the poetry magazine of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, contributing columnist Denise Dumars writes at the end of her piece: Write a formalist poem about autumn that does NOT mention falling leaves, bones, October/November holidays, Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino, or similar tropes. Oh, and it has to contain the color blue.
I do not use any of the list of words she has forbidden. And I succeeded in putting the color blue into it. But she did say no to "similar" autumn tropes. Well, I used the words: skeleton, moonlight, phantom...so be it. And I don't write formal verse except for haiku and very very rare moments of rhyme so this is not a "formalist poem." But anyway, not one to pass up an autumn poetry challenge, here is what I came up with.

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Welcome to yet another author mini-interview for my blog. And welcome David C. Kopaska-Merkel.

David and I have known each other through mail and the Internet since the 1980s. He has also been kind to publish a lot of my poetry in his wonderful poetry magazine Dreams and Nightmares. That magazine's 100th issue is coming out soon, complete with color cover, and I am honored to have a poem within it. I'll announce here and on Facebook when it is out. In the past, David and I have also collaborated on poems together. That was a great experience.

Last year I read (and reviewed for Star*Line) his collection Luminous Worlds from Dark Regions

Press. Because David has written so many books, I heartily recommend this one as a good sampling, a great place to start if you have not had the privilege of reading him before.

And now, on to the interview!

David C. Kopaska-Merkel

Why do you write what you do?

I don't usually plan ahead. I write what comes
into my head. I have ideas that knock hard to be let out. I like science
fiction and fantasy, so that's what I write. I made up stories and poems for my
children when they were small, so I write those things too. One thing I set out
to write, deliberately, is the daily poem. These are usually haiku and they are
usually about something that is in my presence. That is how haiku are supposed
to be written, at least traditionally. I do try to write for themed issues and
such, but sometimes everything I come up with just doesn't fit.

How does your writing process work?

I sit down to write, and sometimes something
intelligible comes out. If I think I might be able to improve it, then I fiddle
with it, adding commas and taking them out, wholesale reorganization, that sort
of thing. Quite often, I decide the avenue I'm following is unfruitful. At that
point I either start over with a piece of what I've got in front of me or
abandon it altogether.

I have an online writing group. Each week we
propose words and then the idea is that each of us will write a poem using some
or all of the words. I find this is a good way to get started writing. Also, if
you really try to use all the words, the challenge encourages creative
thinking.

What are you working on now?

I am working on a second book of children's
poems. The Edible Zoo was written for
my children, nieces, and nephews when the oldest ones were only a couple of
years old. They really liked the funny poems about people and animals trying to
eat each other, and over the years when more nieces and nephews were born, and
another daughter, I added poems. Eventually it was published and a couple of
them bought copies for their own children. So recently I wrote a silly
children's poem about an animal (it wasn't being eaten). I read this poem to my
other writing group (this one is local). Several members are pretty serious and
accomplished writers. Anyway, everybody liked the poem, so that's my new
project: write some more.

How does your work differ from others in the
genre?

I don't know how to answer this question. I am
one of several science-fiction poets who includes a fair amount of science in
some of their poems, and I am the only one of these who is a geologist (as far
as I know.) In many of my poems a viewpoint character struggles against a
hostile or uncaring universe. Sometimes I feel sorry for this person. But does
this set me apart from most other speculative poets? I don't think so.

Bio: David C. Kopaska-Merkel

When not
writing poetry, David Kopaska-Merkel studies the varied and
strange part of the Earth called Alabama. Kopaska-Merkel
has written myriads of poems, stories, and essays since the 70s. He won the
Rhysling award (Science Fiction Poetry Association) for best long poem in 2006
for a collaboration with Kendall Evans. He has written 23 books, of which the
latest is Luminous Worlds, a collection of dark poetry from Dark Regions
(http://www.amazon.com/Luminous-Worlds-David-C-Kopaska-Merkel/dp/193712892X/).
Kopaska-Merkel has edited Dreams & Nightmares magazine since 1986. DN
website http://dreamsandnightmaresmagazine.blogspot.com/. @DavidKM on
twitter.

*

Thank you so much, David, for taking the time to answer my questions. Look for future interviews with more authors on this blog.

Monday, October 27, 2014

First I have a new book out, a collection of short stories, half new, half previously published in various anthologies. The collection is called Beneath the Blue Dusk and the Sea and was great fun to put together.

The collection contains 8 stories and 8 poems.
All the poems except one are brand new, never before published.

Next, I have designed a new cover for my science fiction novel, Pale Zenith. I'm quite happy with it. Much better than the first.

New cover for Pale Zenith

And speaking of Pale Zenith, I have one short story and one novella, both set in that universe, that I am now re-editing. They will soon be put out in a book which will be a companion book to Pale Zenith. The book will be called Moltenrose, and I am finalizing the book format now.

Another project I am working on is a collection of some of my previously published vampire short stories. The book will be called Bitters and I plan to have it out before the end of the year with a nice, enticing cover!

And not to be forgotten, my new poetry book, Turn Left at November, will be coming out from Eldritch Press in November of this year. I'm very excited and as soon as I have a cover to show I will post it here.

I have plans to begin a new novel. Nothing specific yet because, well, I'm a seat of the pants kind of writer. I write "into the dark" and that is why I enjoy it so much. I have found, after much trial and error (and some success) for decades that giving myself permission to just play on the page (and never to someone else's expectations or specifications) has produced some of my best work.

You know, people have accused me of "having stars in my eyes" because I say I enjoy writing. Some people don't even "trust" writers who say that. But I've worked long and hard at my craft, more than 30 years of practice, millions of words. I'm no newbie. I have created an environment both physical and mental that is like a writer's toybox wherein I lift things out and play all day (when my travel-for-work season is over,) losing all sense of time. If I'm doing it all wrong, so be it, I don't care. I've spent years unlearning so many writer-myths that I could write books just about that. As a result of all that, no more blocks, self-censorship, self-criticizing. This is for me. I work at the craft I love stress-free. Any sales to magazines, anthologies and publishers I've made is, really, just the extra cherry.

If you have read this blog before, you know I write poetry ALL THE TIME. So here is the first part of a four part poem about rain I wrote last night. (I mostly write just before I go to sleep...sometimes I fall asleep with my journal pen in my hand.)

I Am Rain

1.

Rain

taps

haunting the window

wanting into

my mind

to slide its cold-moss thoughts

helm my dreams

liquid and alive

letting clouds walk into me

for awhile

I’m a shattered lake

drifting on

mouths of air

I contain

shimmering mirrors

pools where the moon laps me

briefly unfolding its wide circle

to let me see inside

I hear

the lone weeping of stars

as I fall

More free stuff: For today only (Oct. 27, 2014) my erotic romance The Foundling is free on Kindle until midnight. Enjoy!

Upcoming: I will be at Mystery and Imagination Bookshop in Glendale, CA for a book signing at 6 P.M. November 6, 2014. The signing is for the long-awaited iconic anthology A Darke Phantastique edited by Jason V. Brock. My short story "I Keep the Dark that is Your Pain" appears within.

My next blog will be an interview with the wonderful poet David C. Kopaska-Merkel.

Thursday, October 16, 2014

In continuing my series of mini-interviews with fellow authors, today's focus is on Maria Alexander. Maria and I share room in the anthology Mutation Nation, where her horror story, "Nickelback Ned," is collected. You can also find this story in her collection, By the Pricking. We actually met at a book signing for Mutation Nation. She is a quick-witted, enthusiastic, sparkling personality.

She is also a wonderful poet and screenwriter.

Her first novel, Mr. Wicker, was just released in September from Raw Dog Screaming Press.

Here are her answers to my questions.

Maria Alexander

1. Why do you write what you do?

Writing is like possession. I let a
story ride me like the loa until the spirit is done with me. But why did a
particular story take over my life? And why did it have such deep
emotional resonance that I can't let go of it? I can't say. I suppose darker
stories inhabit me because I am pretty spooky in general. Do I sometimes make
choices about projects? Of course. But when Papa Ghede wants to get hitched,
that cigar smoke is the sweetest perfume on earth. I can't resist it. Mr.
Wicker was born from a specific incident in my life that was quite bizarre
yet powerful — so powerful, in fact, that I've carried it with me all these
years. But I'm not telling that origin story in interviews or on my blog.
Rather, there's a puzzle at the end of the book trailer:

If you
solve it, you will embark on a journey that reveals the story as you go.

2. How does your writing process work?

Normally, an idea strikes
and I can't stop thinking about it. If I'm in the middle of another project, I
finish that project before moving onto the new idea. (Often, the new idea needs
time to "bake," anyway.) Soon, the skeleton of the story lies before me,
including and especially the ending. There's usually something cathartic about
that ending, which I think is why it's so important for me to write the story
(getting back to the first question). I start with 3 x 5 cards if it's a book —
which it is almost always these days — and I look for structure first. Are my
opening, midpoint and climax in place? I used to be a screenwriter, so I'm very
conscious about structure. I usually have a firm idea about my main character,
but the others are more fluid. I start writing, trusting that, even if I
initially don't like what I put on the page, I'll eventually come up with
something much better.

3. What are you working on now?

I just
finished writing Snowed, a YA novel in a dark trilogy. I'm
currently researching and outlining the second book, Inversion, as well
as querying agents. The first book has gotten such a wildly enthusiastic
response from my beta readers — almost all teenagers and their mothers who
couldn't put it down — that I feel confident it'll soon find its way into
readers' hands.

4. How does your work differ from others in the
genre?

I cannot for my life come up with a story about zombies,
werewolves, vampires, witches or any other popular trope. I suspect that, if I
could write about zombies in particular, I would have had a much bigger career
by now. I've thought about this quite a bit, but it's just not in my creative
DNA. I do have one published vampire story ("Veil of Skin"), but the original
version had no real vampires at all. For years, I couldn't sell the story until
I turned this one character into a real vampire rather than a person in a
costume. I have written about ghosts, but most of those tales are based on my
real-life personal experiences, of which I've had many; that might be different
from most authors who write ghost stories.

For me, I tend either to
twist existing myths or come up with my own creatures and mythologies. If there
is a trope that I've embraced at all, it's the psychopomp. An example of that is
"The Dark River of His Flesh," a story that first appeared in Paradox: The
Magazine of Historical and Speculative Fiction.
Set at the dawn of Queen Victoria's reign, it's about a man grief-stricken by
the suicide of his illicit lover. One night, a mysterious link boy leads him to
an absinthe bar that magically changes location every time he visits. The
absinthe drinks allow him to see his dead lover, but they're also leading him
somewhere increasingly hellish with each visit.

So, that's how my
stories might be different. I just hope people enjoy them. Thanks,
Wendy!

Bio

Maria Alexander is a produced screenwriter,
games writer, acclaimed short story writer, virtual world designer,
award-winning copywriter, interactive theatre designer and Bram Stoker
Award-nominated poet. Her debut novel, Mr. Wicker, is now available from Raw Dog
Screaming Press. Library Journal gave it a Starred Review. Publishers Weekly
calls it "...(a) splendid, bittersweet ode to the ghosts of
childhood."

When she's not wielding a katana at her shinkendo dojo, she's
being outrageously spooky or writing Doctor Who filk. She lives in Los Angeles
with two ungrateful cats and a purse called Trog.